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I have given up on dating. For reasons stated in my last post, I am not interested in putting myself out there at all in order to find, or become involved in, a relationship. Right after my separation and divorce in 2007, at the insistence of my oldest daughter, I put up an online profile on a dating site. Before the year was out, I had tried nearly all the dating sites in existence at that time. I got to know the dating sites, and I met a lot of really great people. None of them were “the one”, but they were all decent. I met a few creepers also, but I learned to distinguish these people early on, for the most part.

I’m not sure people can be classified so distinctly into one or the other category. I know that throughout my life, I have been both. TGBF, while it would seem took more than he gave, actually gave quite a bit…at least there for a while he did. I gave a lot, but I also, especially at the end, took my fair share or as much of it as I possibly could, once I knew he was going to bolt.

We both gave and we both took. He gave time and effort to making sure the daily routines in our home ran efficiently. He truly was at our beck and call and seemed glad about that. He did so much for me and I was grateful. I gave more tangible things, food, shelter, stuff, because I was able and glad to do it…at least there for a while I was. Once he made his decision to leave he began to ease up on the giving and started doing more taking. Sensing something was wrong, I backed off on giving and because to focus more on taking…or getting paid back…for things he promised he’d pay me back for, which he never did, and which, I now realize, he won’t ever. The relationship deteriorated to the point where iI asked him to change or leave and he threw the neutron bomb of relational endings by moving immediately to a place far away. (He later texted me and told me he did this so we wouldn’t get back together. My response? Good to know.)

This is all water under the bridge, as they say.

I ponder these things, in the wee hours of the night, because, well, to be honest, I don’t know the reason because. I just do. There’s a part of me that wants to try to make sense of the confusing turn of events. There’s a part of me that wants to try to learn from whatever went wrong so I don’t repeat the mistakes of the past. There’s part of me that wishes that, if it wasn’t going to work out, it had never happened. There’s a part of me that is just still really confused and bewildered.

Last weekend, the night that TGBF was to come and get his things, I met up with some friends for drinks. One of the women stated, “If the guy doesn’t make more than I do, I don’t give him a second thought.” She’s been taken advantage of and made her costly mistakes. Apparently she’s learned her lesson. A lesson, I suspect I need to learn. (When men treat women like this, is it any wonder women begin to put demands on men like this?)

The saddest thing of all, for me, is that the man took two years of my life and I have nothing but his furniture and a whole lot of painful confusion to show for it. It’s reason enough to never date again, or, if I do to make sure I’m less of a giver and more of a taker the next time around.